Hello. I develop comedy for television. Have a read of my Foot in the Door blog where I remember some of the stupid things I’ve done in my career. It may be useful if you’re into that kind of thing. I also write and perform comic songs. You can listen to them here and find out about gigs too. Thanks for having a look.

New Year, New Stuff…

Hello and a very happy new year. I hope you are excited by the possibilities and opportunities that lie ahead. Even if you are currently sat in your dressing gown typing nonsense for your website attempting to stave off the fear. Just by the very act of typing, you are doing that. I think just did a bit of ironic self-congratulation. Not sure if that’s good or not – you decide.

For the last couple of years I was working for Comedy Central where I had a great time working on a bunch of stuff like Drunk History, which is a really great show and looks incredible, and the shorts I’ve posted about with Tom Rosenthal, Absolutely Fine, which are brilliant so do have a watch…

Now I’m back working independently, developing and writing projects all of which will definitely hit your screens at some point1.

So, here’s the plan… I’ve decided to be more open about what I’m up to. I’ve always been wary of sharing things too early, not because I worry about people stealing ideas – if you stress about that, you’ll honestly get nowhere. I remember reading a quote from a writer or producer (I think it was in David Quantick’s How To Write Everything) that the size and frequency of copyright notices on a submission is almost always inversely proportional to the quality of the writing. That rang true to me.

I can’t always give all the information, if I’m working on something with another writer then it’s not really fair to divulge it without their permission. But where I can, I’ll write about what I’m doing. I hope it’ll be interesting and useful, but mainly it’s an entirely selfish action – I reckon that if I tell people what I’m up to then it’ll motivate me to get stuff done, because it’ll be embarrassing otherwise. Expect loads of blogs saying, ‘I sent (INSERT PROJECT HERE) to (INSERT BROADCASTER OR EXECUTIVE HERE) and, ‘I am waiting to hear back from (INSERT BROADCASTER HERE).

Today I’m back to work and looking at a treatment for a silent comedy I’ve co-created. I think it’s a strong idea but it’s a bit of a re-working of a previous project. This is something that is always worth trying but it can be difficult to let stuff go. All I have to do it let all the great scenes and jokes that won’t work in the new format go. Let it go.

Sorry if you now have that song from Frozen going round in your head.

Good luck in 2018.

1Okay, maybe 5-10% have a realistic chance, but you have to start with the belief that all will be good enough otherwise you might as well go back to working in a luxury fruit goods packing factory in Devon. That was my worst job ever. Worse than working in Sergeant Pepper’s Fun Pub where, on my first shift aged eighteen, a drunk middle-age woman leant over the bar while my hands were occupied pouring a pint and started undoing my trousers.